Piastri not fazed by F1 championship lead as race wins are the bigger focus

Oscar Piastri stays intent on not getting carried away now that he’s main the Method 1 championship for the primary time in his quick profession. 

The McLaren driver leads the standings by 10 factors having gained three of the earlier 4 grands prix together with the final two in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

That’s regardless of a poor season-opener in Melbourne, the place for a lot of the race Piastri trailed Lando Norris in a McLaren 1-2 however finally completed ninth after spinning off within the latter levels. 

The 24-year-old, who is simply in his third season, stated forward of this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix: “Successful the races is what’s thrilling for the time being.

“I feel the championship lead is sweet, however I feel I stated after Saudi, I am rather more proud and glad of the work and the explanations behind why I am main the championship than truly the truth that I’m main the championship.   

“Particularly on condition that Melbourne did not go very nicely from a factors perspective, I feel it went nicely so far as execution goes, however contemplating I began with a little bit of a deficit and I’ve pulled it again, I feel that is form of the half that I am having fun with essentially the most, is the the reason why we’re main the championship.”   

Piastri is now thought of the favorite for this yr’s crown, regardless of that tag belonging to Norris initially of the yr.

However because the Briton’s win from pole in Melbourne, his kind has faltered as Norris has struggled to familiarize yourself with the MCL39.

Piastri believes this isn’t all the way down to a specific type of driving that the McLaren automobile favours, as an alternative it’s about working to extract essentially the most from the automobile on any given circuit. 

“The automobile is an evolution from what we had final yr, there’s some issues which can be completely different, however there’s numerous issues that also do the identical factor as final season,” he added.

“From my facet, I really feel like I’ve taken a step ahead throughout the board. I feel there’s not been one particular factor that I attempted to work on from final yr, I’ve simply been looking for these final hundredths of a second, wherever you may.  

“For the time being that is been making a distinction, I’ve nonetheless misplaced out on a number of poles by a number of hundredths of a second, so I’ve nonetheless acquired some extra digging to do, however I feel that is been the large distinction for me thus far.”   

That distinction has seen Piastri outqualify Norris on three out of 5 grands prix weekends in 2025, whereas the Briton has only one victory to his team-mate’s three.

The opposite grand prix was gained in Japan by Pink Bull’s Max Verstappen, who’s third within the championship and 12 factors behind Piastri.